Tag: ethics
An Improvised Family: Yom Kippur with Rome’s Progressive Jews
Normally people do not go to Rome to refrain from eating. But it was Yom Kippur, and I was on my way to afternoon services at Beth Hillel, Rome’s new progressive Jewish community. My long walk to th... Read More
Creating Single (M)Otherhood: The Problem of Our “Morality” and How Single Mothers Embody the Ethics We Need
A recent article called “4 Ways I Knew Ray Rice Was Raised by a Single Mother” features a misogynistic enumeration of the football player’s flaws attributed to being raised by a single mom. Thes... Read More
When in Rome, Do as the Progressive Roman Jews Do
I was late to Rosh Hashanah services at Beth Hillel, Rome’s new progressive Jewish community. I meant to leave my apartment at 6pm but I scooted out the door by 6:45pm, realizing that the mistake wo... Read More
Medicine and Moral Conflict in Botswana
The ride from Gaborone to the hospital in Molepolole starts in the dark. By the time the sun rises, we are onto Donkey Road, a 40km drag that lives up to its name of scattered donkeys, pensively explo... Read More
Genocide and Others
After visiting the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem I must have been visibly upset. An Israeli woman who was part of our tour group, knowing my Jewish heritage, approached me to ask who in my family wa... Read More
Seventy Times Seven, or Why Religious Communities Need to Get Smarter About Mental Health, Right Freaking Now.
We are all humans. All humans make mistakes. Mistakes can (and should, in my opinion) be forgiven. That being said, this does not give us license to keep on making these mistakes. There is part of a l... Read More
The Good Samaritan: Knowing our Strengths and Weaknesses for Care
This past week, I had the great honor of leading an alternative spring break trip of ten undergraduate students to Philadelphia, with an emphasis on interfaith encounters and social justice. We focuse... Read More
We Are All of Us Soft Animals: Ruminations on Compassion
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. “Wild G... Read More